On this page
-
Text (3)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
« Doctrines ' , are either spiritual truths , or are statements of external history . Of the former we may have an inward witness ;—that is their proper evidence ; --but the latter must depend upon adequate testimony and logical criticism . " One of the interesting experiences of his change of faith is thus noted : — " I felt no convulsion of mind , no emptiness of soul , no inward practical change ; but I knew that it would be said this was only because the force of the old influence was as yet unspent , and that a gradual declension in the vitality of my religion must ensue . More than eight
years have since passed , and I feel I have now a right to contradict that statement . To any ' Evangelical' I have a right to say , that while he has a single I have a double experience ; and I know that the spiritual fruits which he values have no connection whatever with the complicated and elaborate creed which his school imagines to be the roots out of which they are fed . That they depend directly on the heart ' s belief in the sympathy of God with individual man , I am well assured ; but that doctrine does not rest upon the Bible or upon Christianity : for it is a postulate from which every Christian advocate is forced to start . If it be denied , he cannot
take a step forward in his argument . He talks to men about Sin and Judgment to come , and the need of Salvation , and so proceeds to the Saviour . But his very first step , —the idea of Sin , —assumes that God concerns himself with our actions , words , thoughts ; assumes therefore that sympathy of God with man , which ( it seems ) can only be known by an infallible Bible "I know that many Evangelicals will reply that I never can have had ' the true' faith ; else I could never have lost it ; and as for my not being conscious of spiritual change , they will accept this as confirming their assertion . Undoubtedly I cannot prove that I ever felt as they now feel . Perhaps they love their present opinions more than truth , and are careless to examine and
verify them ; with that I claim no fellowship . But there are Christians of another stamp , who love their creed only because they believe it to be true , but love truth , as such , and truthfulness more than any creed : with these I claim fellowship . Their love to God and man , their allegiance to righteousness and true holiness , will not be in suspense and liable to be overturned by new discoveries in geology and in ancient inscriptions , or by improved criticism of texts and of history , nor have they any imaginable interest in thwarting the advance of scholarship . It is strange indeed to undervalue that Faith , which alone is purely moral and spiritual , alone rests on a basis that cannot be shaken , alone lifts the possessor above the conflicts of erudition , and makes it impossible for him to fear the increase of knowledge .
• " At the same time I confess to several moral changes , as the result of this change in my creed , the principal of which are the following : — ' ? 1 . I have found that my old belief narrowed my affections . " It taught me to bestow peculiar love on ' the people of God , ' and it assigned an intellectual creed as one essential mark of this people . That creed may be made more or less stringent ; but when driven to its minimum , it includes a lecognilion of the historical proposition , that ' the Jewish teacher Jesus fulfilled the conditions requisite to constitute him the Messiah of the ancient
lit brew prophets . ' This proposition has been rejected by very many thoughtful and sincere men in England , and by tens of thousands in France , Germany , Italy , Spain . To judge rightly about it is necessarily a problem of literary ciiticism ; which has both to interpret the Old Scriptures and to establish how much of the biography of Jesus in the New is credible . To judge wrongly about it may prove one to be a bad critic , but not a less good and less pious man . Yet ray old creed enacted an affirmative result of this historical enquiry as a test of one ' s spiritual state , and ordered me to think harshly of
men like Marcus Aurelius and Lessing , because they did not adopt the conclusion which the professedly uncritical have established . It possessed me with a general gloom concerning Mohammedans and Pagans , and involved the whole course of history and prospects of futurity in a painful darkness from which I am relieved . ' « 2 . Its theory was one of selfishness . That is , it inculcated that my first business must be , to save my soul from future punishment , and to attain future happiness ; and it bade me to chide myself when I thought of nothing but about doing present duty and blessing God for pre-Bent enjoyment . "
There is serious advice couched in the following paragraph , which people would do well to ponder on : — " Many who call themselves Christian preachers busily undermine moral sentiment , by telling their hearers that if they do not believe the Bible ( or the Church ) , they can have no firm religion or morality , and will have no reason to give against following brutal appetite . This doctrine it is that bo often makes men atheists in Spain , and profligates in England , as soon as they unlearn the national creed : and the schools which have done the mischief moralize over the wickedness of human nature when it comes to pass , instead of blaming the falsehood which they have themselves inculcated . "
Awnre of the misrepresentations and antagonisms to which his plain avowal of opinion must givo rise , lie is anxious to place himself beforo the candid mind in such a position as will secure him calm judgment . He snys , truly enough : — Morality and truth are principles in human nature both older and more widespread than Christianity or the Bible : and neither Jesus , nor James , nor John , nor l ' uul , could have addressed or did address men in any other tone than that of claiming to be themselves judged by aorae pre-cxieting standard of moral truth , and by the
inward powers of the -hearer . Does the reader deny this ? or , admitting it , does he think it impious to accept their challenge ? Does he say that we are to love and embrace Christianity without trying to ascertain whether it is true or false ? If he say , Yes , —such a man has ^ no love or care for Truth , and is but by accident a Christian . He would have remained a faithful heathen had he been born in heathenism , though Moses , Elijah , and Christ preached a higher truth to him . Such a man is condemned by his own confession , and I here address him no longer . ' " But if Faith is a spiritual and personal thing , if Beim
lief given at random to mere high pretensions is an - morality , if Truth is not to be quite trampled down , nor Conscience to be wholly palsied in us , —then what , I ask , was I to do , when I saw that the genealogy in the first chapter of Matthew is an erroneous copy of that in the Old Testament ? and that the writer has not only copied wrong , but also counted wrong , so as to mistake eighteen for fourteen ? Can any man , who glories in the name of Christian , lay his hand on his heart and say , it was my duty to blind my eyes to the fact and think of it no farther ? Many , alas , I know , would have whispered this to me ; but if any one were to proclaim it , the universal conscience of mankind would call him impudent . "
The obstacles to the progress of free enquiry are thus noted : — ' Two opposite errors are committed by those who discern that the pretensions of the national religious systems are overstrained and unjustifiable . One class of persons inveighs warmly , bitterly , rudely against the bigotry of Christians , and knows not how deep and holy affections and principles , in spite of narrowness , are cherished in the bosom of the Christian society . Hence their invective is harsh , cold , unsympathizing , and appears so essentially unjust and so ignorant as to
exasperate and increase the very bigotry which it attacks . An opposite class know well , and value highly , the moral influences of Christianity and , from an intense dread of harming or losing these , do not dare plainly and publicly to avow their own convictions . Great numbers of English laymen are entirely assured that the Old Testament abounds with error , and that the New is not always unimpeachable : yet they only whisper this ; and in the hearing of a clergyman , who is bound by articles , and whom it is indecent to refute , keep a respectful silence . * * * Nowhere from any body of priests ,
clergy , or ministers , as an order , is religious progress to be anticipated , until intellpctual creeds are destroyed . A greater responsibility , therefore , is laid upon laymrn to be faithful and bold in avowing their
convictions . " Yet it is not from the practical ministers of religion that the great opposition to religious reform proceeds . The * secular clergy' ( as the Romanists oddly call them ) were seldom so bigoted as the ' regulars . ' So with us , those who minister to men in their moral trials have for the most part a deeper moral spirit , and are less apt to plane religion in systems of propositions . The robur leffionum of bigotry , I . believe , is found , —first , in nonparochial clergy , and next , in the anonymous writers for religious journals and conservative' newspapers , who too ashamed if
generally * adopt a style of which the-y would be the names of the writers were attached ; who often seem desirous of making it clear that it is their trade to carp , insult , or slander ; who assume a tone of omniscience at the very moment when they show narrowness of heart and judgment . To such writing those who desire to promote earnest thought and tranquil progress ought anxiously to testify their deep repugnance . A large part of this slander and insult is prompted by a base pandering to the ( real or imagined ) taste of the public , and will abate when it visibly ceases to be gainful . "
How true oil this ! and what a shameless and degraded state of the intellect it reveals ! As we said on a former occasion , there is no other logical alternative than Absolute Freedom or the Inquisition . Interdict all enquiry as dangerous , as irreligious , and as impious , if you will ; make the lordly spirit of man bow like a slave to your dogmas , if you can . But to preach the Tight of private judgment—and Protestantism is based on that right—with the secret understanding that the judgment is not to differ from your own , is intolerable tyranny . To give a man freedom , and to punish him if he walks beyond your parish , is derision : —
" The arguments of those who resist progress are always the same , whether it be Pagans against Hebrews , Jews against Christians , Romanists against Protestants , or modern Christians against the advocates of a higher spiritualism . Each established system assures its votaries that now at length they have attained a final perfection ; that their foundations are irremovable ; progress up to that position was a duty , beyond it is a sin . Each displaces its predecessor by superior goodness , but then , alas , each fights against its successor by odium , contempt , exclusions , and ( when possible ) by violences . Each advances mankind one step , and forbids them to take a second . Yet if it be admitted that in the earlier movement the party of progress was always right , confidence that the case is now reversed is not easy to justify . "
In the glorious days of priestly supremacy , it was heretical to read the Scriptures in the vernacularheretical to put on a white shirt on Saturday—heretical to despise Church bells—heretical to do a great many other equally outrageous things ( as may be
seen in the manual written by Torquemada ) ; and in those days heretics were frizzled , surrounded by every form , of Christian gentleness and mercy ; the very sentence which condemned them had in it the exquisite flavour of charity and love , for it would not use the shocking words " burning alive , " but intimated the process in this agreeable periphrasis , " as merciful as possible , and without effusion of blood !•—clementissima et extra sanguinis effusionem . "
Those are days to which we do not look back with fond regret ; but , however repugnant to our feelings the Inquisition may be , it is the only legitimate antithesis to absolute freedom . Are those who would circumscribe the fields of enquiry prepared to a ccept the Inquisition ? Towards the promotion of a free enquiry into religion this book of Mr . Newman ' s will be of great and lasting benefit . To many it will doubtless appear singular that Mr . Newman should have been so long arriving at his conclusions—that he should have proceeded , step by step , with the utmost caution ,
approaching each new point like a general about to lay a siege , and not have hurried onwards with everincreasing velocity from the first glimmering of doubt to the broad daylight of conviction . This , indeed , constitutes one peculiarity , and , we venture to think , one enormous advantage of the book . We cannot pretend to assign the cause—we know not whether it is referable to the original constitution of his mind , or to the powerful operation of early influences—but certain it is that throughout the work there are traces of singular timidity , accompanied by manly earnestness . A bold thinker Mr . Newman is not . But he
is so earnest , and his earnestness so completely masters , in the end , all the timid scruples derived from old prejudices , that he writes with a plainness and absence of equivocation seldom seen even in bold speculators . The picture here given of a mind struggling with and finally overriding its prejudices , is extremely interesting . On other accounts we regard this peculiarity as benefieial . It will win hundreds who would not listen to the rapid unfolding of the question . The reader will have scruples to be
overcome , and this bit-by-bit mode of viewing the subject—this history of slow progress made involuntarily , and with manifest misgivings—will come so home to the feelings of all readers not already converted to its ulterior views , that the power thence derived is incalculable . Mr . Newman does not leap at the truth ; but his own thoughtfulness impels him to acknowledge it when seen , forces him to look at it , and not to avert his eyes . His convictions seem wrung from him .
Untitled Article
BAMFORD ' s TIM BOBBIN . Dialect of South Lancashire ; or , Tim Bobbin ' s Tummus and Mcury . Revised and corrected , with his Rhymes , and an enlarged and amended Glossary of Words and Phrases , chiefly used by the liural Population of the Manufacturing Districts of South Lancashire , Uy Samuel Bamford . Manchester . Perhaps our Lancashire readers will better understand what this book is about if we quote Mr .
Bamford ' s vernacular title-page , which sets forth that the reader is to expect " Tawk o' Seawth Lankeshur or Tim Bobbin Tummus an Meary , fettlt an made greadiy ; wi' his rhymes , an a moor-worded , an better-spyelt Dixonairy o' words an sayins , chiefly ust byth' cuntry-livin-foke oth' spinnin and cloth makin parts o' seawth Lankesur by Samhul Beamfort : Manchester : sowd bee Booksellers . Entert
at Stashuner Hoi , Lunnun . " Otherwise this very curious volume is called Bamford ' s Tim Bobbin , Tim Bobbin , who is to Lancashire what Tannahill is to Paisley—the saint of the common people—left behind him a Lancashire dialect , the first of tho kind , but very imperfect , as all first dictionaries are . For the use of the iron sons of the north , for the gratification of the curious , for the aid of the antiquarian author , Mr . Bamford has applied his strong mind , and strange knowledge , to the perfection , and , of course , amplification of this dictionary . Besides we have various compositions in prose and verse in
tho " dialect" illustrating its peculiarities and varieties . In these pieces there are both wit and broad humour . " The Battle of the Flying Dragon , " written by the author , to induce Englishmen to be content to be Englishmen , both in dress and politics , bears in addition a salutary lesson on the credulity of popular fear . One great use we see in tho glossary is that it enables the South Lancashire people to ascertain what the words they employ signify in ordinary society , of which we suspect many of them can have no idea . The readers of Miss Martineau's History of England have been familiarized with the
Untitled Article
330 Gfre QLeaHet . [ Saturday ,
Untitled Article
* Any orthodox periodical which dares to write charitably ii at once subjected to fierce attack m unorthodox .
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), June 29, 1850, page 330, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1844/page/18/
-